Based on the fact that many players are curious about the production work behind the glory of the king, we recently produced a skin reveal column "The Secret of the King: How to Make a Skin", from the perspective of making skins, to answer professional hard-core questions for summoners. The third issue of "Building Skin Modeling" will explain how a skin is transformed from an original design on paper into a 3D model from the perspective of a modeler.

Modeling is a very important part in the production process of the King's Glory skin. At this stage, the modelers need to combine points, lines and surfaces with the original painting, through spatial imagination, and with the assistance of professional software. , deformation, successfully built a 3D model of the skin, and then through a series of processes to make it rich in details and lifelike. Afterwards, the actual effects in the game, as well as collisions with other elements, etc. need to be considered, so this stage is relatively time-consuming and usually takes 350~450 hours to complete.

How to make a model

The skin model of the King of Glory is divided into an external model and an internal model according to the different scenes.

The external model usually appears alone, focusing on presenting the details of the skin design with high quality, so that everyone can have a more intuitive understanding of the effect of the skin.

If you want to perfectly show the model effects that are out of the game, you have to go through four stages of fine polishing: modeling, baking, texture drawing and rendering.

modeling

From the ground up, the modeler did not design it overnight, but needed to go through a process of "simplification first, then complex", and then "from complex to simple".

Taking the skin of Frost Love Dance as an example, whether it is the trunk line made of solid ice, the ice crystal pattern that spreads to the face, the pattern on the armor and the metal material, all of them truly and meticulously depict a frozen soul in the north. . I believe that when you see this skin, you can clearly feel: even if the soul is frozen, it is difficult to regret the hot feelings of the go-getter.

When designing, the modeler will first design according to the original painting of Frost Love Dance, carefully study its body shape and structural characteristics, and build a rough appearance, that is, a rough model. At this stage, we can already see Outline the basic outline of the Frost Drymaster.

Immediately afterwards, the modeler will continue to use special software tools to carefully sculpt the rough mold to produce a high-precision model that restores the details of the original painting as much as possible. And high precision means that the model has a lot of faces. At this time, the model with smooth and delicate surface is actually composed of tiny faces. As for the number of faces, it actually refers to the number of faces used to make up the model. For the same model, the more faces it has, the smoother the line transitions on the surface will be when zoomed out, and the model will look more refined.

bake

At this time, the model cannot be used directly, because its high-precision model has more than 10 million faces, and direct use in mobile games will cause an excessive burden on performance. Therefore, the modeler needs to further process the model, taking into account the accuracy in the game and the rationality of the number of faces.

When making cakes, master bakers will use molds to make fancy desserts of various shapes. We can also understand the completed high-precision model as a mold. The modeler will adjust and make a dry model with a relatively low number of faces, and use it to wrap the high-precision mold. Through software calculation, the mold information is mapped to low on the face model. After this step, the model with a lower face count has the concave-convex structure and clothing details that are basically the same as the high-precision model, realizing the simulation effect of presenting a high-precision model with a limited face count.

texture drawing

After the baked Ganjian model is refined by the modeler, the modeler will turn to special mapping software to color the model, and match the corresponding material effects to different parts of the Ganjian according to the original painting design: white armor with slight combat damage, Shiny metal accents, a crystalline frosted torso, thick fur collars, and more. The addition of color and material effects makes the model more complete and realistic.

rendering

After the first three stages of fine polishing, a lifelike, slender ice-sealed dry general appeared. But obviously that's not enough, the silver saddle goes with the white horse, as is the outside display of the skin. At this time, the modeler uses engine rendering to further improve the quality of the model and the lighting atmosphere and material effects of the display scene, and then integrates all related elements such as animation and special effects, and finally presents a complete and beautiful pair of fearless wind and snow. A soul that erodes and loves in ice.

And the effect achieved now is not the existence that is finally applied to the game. The modeler will try to show you a 3D model with a real effect, and then make various details optimization.

Become a modeler with weird details

In addition to the above basic production process, to create a 3D model with real effects, there are still many things to do, such as repeated adjustment of body shape, polishing of modeling details, improvement of underlying rendering technology, improvement of lighting, addition of dynamic physical PBR materials, etc. .

Do you think this is the end? No, not yet. After nitpicking detail optimization, modelers work on areas not covered by the original painting. For example, the angle blind spot when drawing and the basic body shape hidden under the clothing need to be filled by the modeler using spatial imagination and professional knowledge and experience of human body or clothing structure, and finally create a rich and vivid 3D model.

The collision between the modeler and the original artist

In the King's skin production team, the original artist and the modeler are two closely linked positions, and the common goal is to create a skin that players love, but the original painting and model are different in the way of production and the final application.

This also leads to the fact that in the process of making the skin, the modeler and the original artist are both comrades and enemies.

Seeing this, I believe everyone will be very curious. It seems like CP, Jiao Buli Meng, and Meng Bulijiao's two sides, why there is such a strange entanglement?

The answer is very simple, because their starting points are different.

As for the original art designer, he focuses on creative expression around the theme and style of the skin, which will not be directly applied in the game, but exists as a flat visual guide in the skin production process. Therefore, the original art designers put all their ideas about this skin on the paper.

As an object applied in the game, the 3D model combines animation, special effects, and programming technology. After a complex development process, in addition to restoring the original design as much as possible at the visual level, the practical application level must also be considered, such as in the game. , interacting with various elements such as monsters, soldier lines, defense towers, and other players, and so on. Therefore, the works of the original artists will naturally have some places that will be trimmed by the modelers.

Of course, in this way, it will naturally attract the squinting eyes of the original painters.

The picture is like this.

Original artist: What I designed with great pains and pains, you cut it off for me?

Modeler: No one wants this to happen, but it conflicts with some elements of the game, so, you know

Of course, conflict is often lessened by the camaraderie of years of working together.

Original artist: I'm watching Conan recently

Modeler: I think your creativity is very good, let's talk about the design.

So, under the influence of love and justice, they constantly compromise with each other, and on this basis, more inspiration for design will be born, making the skin more and more perfect, and finally reaching an agreement between the original painting and modeling of the skin.

As for what everyone likes and hears, the original artist resorted to deadly scissors, and the modeler secretly smiled and half-stepped this kind of thing, which basically does not happen.

2.0 Model Optimization

In order to improve the skin experience of summoners, the Honor of Kings 3D and technical team have been conducting technical explorations. Using reasonable performance resources to create more detailed and realistic model effects with better effects is a common subject of 3D modeling for mobile games, and it is also the goal that the King of Glory skin production has always pursued.

At the beginning of 2019, the 2.0 version of King of Glory was launched, which reshaped the quality of more than 30 heroes and their skins, and carried out multi-dimensional improvements in modeling, materials, lighting, special effects, animation, etc. As far as 3D model production is concerned, after the 2.0 version upgrade, the number of faces of the skin model is higher, which can restore the contour and volume transition in the original design in more detail; more delicate textures make the patterns on the skin more clear and textured; The new engine rendering makes the light and shadow of the skin more realistic, and can produce special effects that were not possible before.

The soft light of the model is also one of the effects after the 2.0 version upgrade. Its existence makes the character's face more soft, the metal texture of the props is more realistic, and the splendor of the lighting is more gorgeous.

For the Glory of Kings, the 2.0 upgrade is just the beginning, and the improvement of skin quality will be a long-term and continuous process. Thank you summoners for accompanying us all the way.

This article was first published at King Camp @ R & D Art Those Things